It seems so long since I last wrote. That was back on Easter Sunday and so much has happened since then. The day after Easter was a bit chaotic. We were preparing to leave for Florida. Rachel and her girls were still with us. The house was in that post-celebration+grandchildren state of disarray where there seemed to be toys, clothes, and the Easter debris everywhere. Everyone (the adults at least) was trying to pack things up to take to the various destinations involved – the Thayns to home, the rest of us to Florida. There was laundry to do, and the washer and dryer ran continuously all day. On top of all that, the weather was beautiful that day and we did a lot of garden work. We finished preparing the pumpkin bed. Kurt tilled new beds for tomatoes, peas, and onions. The asparagus roots I ordered arrived and we planted them. I also needed to set things up with my plants and animals so Kurt and Julie could care for them while we were away. By the end of the day I was in the state of nervousness and anxiety that I always experience when I’m going to leave home.
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| Working on Monday. |
We left early on Tuesday morning for the airport in Buffalo. We stopped to pick up Stacey’s boss, Mr. Rigas, who is 96 years old. We drove to the airport and flew out at 10:30. We arrived in Ft. Myers, Florida, before 4:00 and after picking up our car rental and driving down to Naples, we arrived at our AirBnB around 7:00. The house we stayed at was very nice. It was in a quiet neighborhood. The back yard opened onto a little lake full of ducks, turtles, catfish, and a little gallinule that came every morning so we could feed them. Mr. Rigas had the master suite on one side of the house. Stacey and I had our own suite on the other side and Miriam and Hannah shared a room across the hall from us. The whole house was very spacious and clean.
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| The house where we stayed. It had a mango tree in the front yard. |
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| Inside the house. |
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| Inside the house. |
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| Dawn on the little lake behind the house. |
Looking back now, having just arrived home again, our week in Florida seems almost a dream already. I’m looking back over my calendar where I wrote down each day what we had done. Miriam, Hannah, and I went on many adventures. Stacey got to go on some with us, but had to take care Mr. Rigas most of the time. Mr. Rigas got to spend a lot of time with his sister Catherine, which was the main purpose for the trip. On Wednesday, Miriam, Hannah, and I went out to Corkscrew Swamp. They have a great boardwalk that meanders through the swamp. We saw all sorts of flora and fauna – birds, lizards, alligators, cypress trees, palm trees, bromeliads.
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| On the boardwalk at Corkscrew Swamp. |
That evening we went to the beach to watch the sunset. We tried to do that every day we were there. Some evenings the sunset was beautiful with color, other days it was more subtle, but still beautiful.
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| Sunset. |
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| Another sunset. |
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| A more subtle sunset. |
On Thursday we went (by we I usually mean Miriam, Hannah, and I) to the Naples Botanical Garden, maybe my favorite place that we visit when we are there. I love walking through it, looking at the trees and plants, learning their names. We saw some lovely things there – plumeria that smelled like heaven, exotic trees with colorful flowers. And I got to feed my passion for orchids. We also saw many birds, and even alligators.
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| At the Botanical Garden. |
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| At the Botanical Garden. |
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| Plumeria at the Botanical Garden. |
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| Yellow flowering tree. |
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| Alligator. |
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| Orchids. |
When we got back from there, we went to Delnor-Wiggins Pass Beach to do some shell collecting. Every time we were at a beach, we tried to collect some shells. Unfortunately hundreds of other people do the same thing and the beaches were always pretty much picked over before we got there.
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| Delnor-Wiggins Pass Beach. |
On Friday we drove down to Marco Island and went to Tigertail Beach. That’s a fun beach because to get to the outer beach, we had to wade across a lagoon.
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| The lagoon at Tigertail Beach. |
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| Wading the lagoon. |
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| Through the mangroves to the beach. |
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| Tigertail Beach. |
Saturday might be the highlight of our trip. We finally got to go to the Bird Garden of Naples. Last year when we were there, we tried several times to go, but never did. The Bird Garden is a non-profit organization whose sole concern is parrot welfare in captivity and conservation of wild parrots. They rescue birds that the owners, for one reason or another, can no longer take care of. They try to place pet birds that come to them in new homes. They also care for wild birds. They had cages and cages full of beautiful parrots, macaws, and cockatoos. We got to feed them and, at the end of the tour, we got to hold several birds. There was a gorgeous hyacinth macaw, a blue and gold macaw, and my favorite, a cockatoo named Rosita. Rosita, it turns out, likes men with beards and she and I became good friends. She showed off her pretty feathers for me and kept telling me “I’m Rosita!” Now Hannah and Miriam want to rescue parrots.
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| Miriam at the Bird Garden. |
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| Hannah at the Bird Garden. |
On Sunday we didn’t do much of anything. That evening a big storm came through with roiling clouds, thunder, lightning, and pouring rain. It was very dramatic. The next day, Monday, we went bright and early (so we thought) back to Delnor-Wiggins Pass Beach to see if the storm had washed up any good shells. Once again, many people were already there and we only found a few good shells.
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| Storm on Sunday. |
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| Pouring rain. |
Later that afternoon we drove out to Rookery Swamp Preserve. They have a boardwalk and paths through a swamp. We saw more alligators, turtles, and various birds. It was hot that day and by the time we were done, we were hot and tired.
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| At the Rookery Swamp. |
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| The boardwalk at Rookery Swamp. |
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| An alligator on the path. |
On Tuesday, Mr. Rigas had a lunch appointment in Ft. Lauderdale, so we drove across the state. While he was at lunch, we walked through a park and down to the beach so we could say we went to an Atlantic beach. I found that I prefer the Gulf side of the state. Naples is a much nicer city than Ft. Lauderdale.
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| The beach at Ft. Lauderdale. |
On our drive back to Naples, we had an unexpected adventure. Our GPS was set to avoid all toll roads and the 75, the main route, was a toll road, so the GPS steered us onto another road along a canal that stretched across the Everglades. It started out as a paved road, and then turned into a dirt road that got bumpier as it went deeper into the Everglades. There were no other cars except for a few men fishing in the canal. We saw a lot of alligators in the canal. Finally, after 20 miles on this road, we came to a closed gate. We had to turn around and go all the way back. By then the sun had gone down and it was getting dark. We had less than a half tank of gas. I began to wonder if we would ever get back to civilization. But we did. We didn’t get back until late.
Today we bid farewell to Florida and came home again. It was almost 90 in Naples when we left. Miriam and Hannah went up to the Ft. Myers airport and came home on Southwest. Mr. Rigas decided he couldn’t handle another commercial flight, so he hired a private jet to bring him, Stacey, and me home. We flew out of Naples airport at 1:00 and arrived in Bradford at 4:30. We were home by 6:00. Miriam and Hannah arrived home 9:00.
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| Sunrise this morning. |
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| Feeding the ducks one last time. |
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| At Naples Airport. |
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| In flight. |
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| Good-bye to Florida. |
It’s good to be home again. When we pulled up into the driveway, I noticed right away that my garden had changed dramatically. There are hyacinths, daffodils, and other flowers in full bloom that were just buds when I left eight days ago. The fruit trees have broken bud. The lawn has greened and is growing. Tomorrow I will do a full inspection and get to work on all the projects I put on hold. Florida is a great place and I love visiting there. There is no place where I feel more at home than here in this house in Gold. I love it here, especially in the late spring, summer, and early fall, but I think more and more that in my old age I could happily spend the winter in Florida.
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| Back home again. |
Dan
